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Titans out for repeat dose against Raiders

Ed Jackson

It brought them their first NRL win in seven outings so it's no surprise Gold Coast coach John Cartwright wants his team to play against Canberra just as they did against South Sydney.

The Titans ground their way to a no-frills 14-10 victory against Souths in Sydney on Monday night.

Cartwright said he'd made some very subtle changes to his gameplan to nullify the Rabbitohs' forwards and he'll be sticking with that strategy against the Raiders, who he feels boast a similar pack to Souths.

"We changed a little bit last week how we played against the Rabbitohs. We had to because we had to combat a big pack of forwards," Cartwright said.

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"Our forwards met the challenge of a big aggressive pack and I suppose the Raiders are very similar, they've got a very big pack and they are very aggressive. We'll attack the game in a similar way."

Gold Coast's forward stocks will be boosted by the return of Nate Myles and David Taylor from State of Origin duty, although Greg Bird is suspended following his two-game ban for a dangerous throw charge during last Wednesday's clash.

Flyer David Mead has also been scratched due to a hamstring injury, with Kalifa Faifai Loa to replace him on the wing.

The Raiders will be fresh and fit with none of their players involved in Origin and having enjoyed a bye last weekend.

Cartwright said he was confident both Taylor and Myles wouldn't be too badly affected by their Origin exploits.

"Your Origin players, they're generally the guys that you look to when you need them and this time of the year they're generally under the pump through so much football," he said.

"Common sense would tell you it's hard when your Origin players have got to back up, but having said that Dave didn't play a lot of footy the other night and we've got four front-row rotations so we'll use Nate and hopefully we'll stay injury free and don't have to overload him too much."

The Raiders, who are hoping to end a four-game losing run, have moved Brenko Lee to centre with a broken thumb ruling out Jack Wighton.

Jeremy Hawkins was hoping to debut this weekend but the NRL have ruled out that opportunity with the Raiders having already hit their second-tier salary-cap limit.